Since he first laid hands on piano keys at the tender age of five, Deniz Koyu has been a man obsessed with making music.

A producer’s producer – who counts Fedde Le Grand, Sebastian Ingrosso, Axwell, Tiësto, Avicii, Alesso, Erick Morillo, David Guetta and Calvin Harris among his biggest fans – the man behind hits ‘Tung’, ‘Hertz’, ‘Bong’, ‘Follow You’, and more spent his formative year immersed in the world of DJ and production hardware. Hard-earned pocket money was readily swapped for all the second-hand synths and drum machines he could find; hours were spent dissecting the works of Depeche Mode, Daft Punk, Kraftwerk or Cassius; days were spent honing his DJ skills, editing his favourite tracks using nothing more than small tape recorders, sampling whatever he could lay his hands on. In 2011, when Koyu burst onto the global music consciousness with ‘Tung’ and ‘Hertz’, the obsession became a well-earned profession.

It was Fedde Le Grand who snapped up Koyu’s first two productions, using his Flamingo Recordings imprint to get the young producer a wealth of critical acclaim. Remixes for James Blunt’s ‘Dangerous’ and Kaskade’s ‘Turn It Down’ swiftly followed, becoming staples in the sets of the biggest artists at clubs and festivals around the globe. Le Grand voted Deniz his ‘Breakthrough DJ/Producer 2011’, Sebastian Ingrosso called him ‘big time talent” and Axwell replied to the question of a Swedish journalist if he had personal favourites among young DJs: “Deniz Koyu. He makes damn cool music at the moment.” In fact, en masse as the global powerhouse that was the Swedish House Mafia, Deniz’s tracks were supported in pretty much every single one of their sets over a year of constant touring, to the tune of three or four tracks per night.

Axtone Music